Hello and happy November. I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. Although I didn’t have the opportunity to dress up this year, I love Halloween. Isn’t it fun to dress up in costumes and pretend to be somebody else occasionally? There are times when people are completely unrecognizable in their costumes and we get a good laugh out of it. But today, I want to address the costumes we wear on the other days of the year. I’m not talking about the Halloween masks, but the masks we wear to hide our insecurities, fears, faults and struggles from other people. It’s funny how many of us look like we have it all together on the outside. We struggle to conceal all these things from people and hide our vulnerabilities as if they are weaknesses, but in truth, they are just part of being human.
When you look on everyone’s Facebook pages or Instagram you generally see the good stuff - pictures of vacations, celebrations, and smiling faces. I remember watching Steven Furtick on TV once say that we look at other’s social media posts and compare their “highlight’s reel with our reality.” Believe it or not, this causes many adults to plummet into depression because they feel that their life somehow falls short in comparison to someone else’s. Now, I’m not advocating to air your dirty laundry or struggles on social media, but to maintain an awareness that the posts or pictures don’t always reflect the true picture. A cousin of mine told me about a friend who had posted pictures of herself and her boyfriend on vacation. She told her, “I saw your pictures. You looked like you had a great time.” To which she answered, “It was miserable. We got sick and we were fighting almost the entire time.” As adults, most of us realize that the picture doesn’t always reflect reality, but kids don’t necessarily have the experience to realize that. So, make sure you point this out to kids because many times, especially when they reach the middle and high school years, they compare their reality to the illusion of another, and that’s where many of the insecurities and depression begin to take root. The more they use social media, the more vulnerable they may become. Remind them that what they are seeing is only a fragment - the portion of what people are willing to share. The difficult and challenging stuff is what we’re all hiding behind the masks we wear.
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